


Somewhat Damaged

by Native



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Depression, Destroy!Ending, Earthborn!Shepard, M/M, Paragon!Shepard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:15:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Native/pseuds/Native
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Kaidan thinks that maybe this time it's not about what John needs, but what he deserves.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sink or Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fill for a prompt on the k!meme, which is turning out to be very removed from it.

When Kaidan tells him he found them a place to stay, a place to _live_ , John appears conflicted; he says that there are people who need it more than he does, more than them, and that it wouldn't feel right by him. But there are still months of physical therapy and being grounded, months of repairs before the Normandy can fly again, and, though he doesn't say it out loud, Kaidan thinks that maybe this time it's not about what John needs, but what he deserves. So he stops talking about it for a while, tries to find a better approach, discovers one while speaking with their friends. They, too, want the best for Shepard, and that counts, enough to convince him, though his smile seems weaker than usual.  
  
After that, Kaidan does what he can to make them move quickly. There isn't much to move per se, and their new place isn't even that far, but where there's paperwork (for the Alliance and the Council and a dozen other things) there is time lost and he doesn't want to lose any, doesn't want to come see Shepard and hear him say that he changed his mind. This is for him, he thinks when waiting for John's meds at the hospital. The next day, they're ready to go, and he's pleased when it doesn't take much for Shepard to leave the room he claimed for himself, and then chooses to share with others. That much space for one person was too much, he'd said; in the end, they couldn't make him bulge, the damn hero, couldn't make him forget his blighted idea. Kaidan wasn't happy and neither were their friends, but none of them had pushed. It was hard to refuse something right, and even harder to refuse the man himself.  
  
Now that they were out of there, at last, Kaidan found himself able to breathe a little easier; and if the sky was rain gray, who'd care? They were together. He hoped that John felt the same as he did, but didn't ask; the other man was lost in thoughts, looking at something only he could see. It wasn't the first time - back before London, during the war, he'd do it, too. Now... now... now they're almost there; he can see the building and the beginning of the park in front. As they draw near, John starts to slow down, little by little. He never stops, simply seems to want a bit of time to take everything in; the less than pristine but still standing complex, the dampness in the air, the calcined woods. At the front door, he hesitates for a second before entering, but doesn't say anything, simply follows Kaidan to what is going to be their home. _Home_.  
  
Soon, very soon, they’d live together. There had been — visits, yes, to Shepard’s cabin, they had shared the Normandy, in a way, but nothing for them only. Until now. It would be a new experience for both, even if they had lived with other people before. For the hint of fear Kaidan felt, there are ten slices of happiness, though, and he simply decides not to dwell on it. They'd make it up step by step, much like they did during the war, against Saren, like Kaidan between Alchera and Horizon. It would be their chance to create, to have something of them, a haven, maybe; in any case, not to be shared with everyone and his neighbor, unlike many things before. More than that, John would finally be able to rest, and it was what mattered most.  
  
A bit later, as Kaidan makes his way through the open hall to the kitchen, he hears his lover pause before the large window in the living room, turns to find him staring in the distance, then waits for the man to say what he thinks of the odd furniture, of the place, something, anything, really, to break the silence, but it doesn't come. In his his gaze, he finds only gray sky, the promise of deluge; it's a bit like looking in a mirror, a bit like nobody's home. _Home_. Something like apprehension worms its way through his heart but Kaidan chooses, ultimately, to ignore it. They still have things to do. Still have time.


	2. Dissonance

He notices two or three weeks after they start living together, and it fits Shepard so well it's amusing in its own way; soon, Kaidan can't help but tease him. He says, sometimes smiling, sometimes half-laughing, " _That food's not going anywhere, you know?_ " or " _These fries are not running away from you, Shepard_ " and when John answers, more often than not, with a smile of his own, it feels as if there's something right in the world, at last, after everything they saw, all they did and more.

Watching his lover eat as if death was at the door makes him think of the first time they went grocery shopping together, some days before: actual grocery shopping, not "pick-up allocated rations", in the little store that had just reopened near the complex. It was an... enlightening experience; the way Commander John Shepard, Spectre extraordinary, looks when he's torn between two particulars (and perplexing, if the raised eyebrows are anything to go by) particular brands of rice is not something Kaidan is going to forget anytime soon, much to said Spectre's dismay. It's too important, too _real_. It's part of what makes Kaidan feels incredibly lucky; to be able to live like this to be with the man, to love him and be loved back, this is more than he has ever hoped for, more than he has ever allowed himself to dream about.

He remembers how it was back on the SR-1, how he was, miserable and desperately trying to ban these thoughts. After that, he had struggled, to forget them altogether, to move on and carve himself a life in a world where John Shepard was no more. It hurt still, a memory of misery he felt etched on his heart to this day, a phantom pain awoken anew in the light of what had transpired after the final push. Red lights in the sky and embers like snow as behemoths fell from the sky ( _Vega had been the one to find him, broken but breathing_ ). Further away, he recalls the gripping of his lungs when he heard the rumors, received the messages, Anderson, the Alliance, Cerberus, Horizon. Almost one year and a war since then, but some mornings, when the light of dawn crept under the shutters, he wondered still about what he could have done differently, and if he should have. Was it justified? _Understandable_ , at least, and he thinks John thinks that, too. It didn't come up, not since Huerta, and had closure really been achieved? Kaidan settles himself the same way every time, with the knowledge that if his lover had anything to add, anything to say, he would have. There was time.

And then one day, their friends are here, sitting around the big table in the living-room, eating and drinking and laughing and sniping at each other. It's happiness, and he thinks of the gem he found by chance, of the clever retorts they're all going to come up with and how he's going to tell the story with them laughing at his expense, kind because they love him. " _Love, you do realize that nobody here is going to try and steal your food?_ " he says to the man currently _inhaling_ said food (there is no other word for it, really) and he's not wrong, either, because soon enough, there's laughing and taunting, naked joy and elation. Until a moment later, when he looks up from his pasta and meets Vega's eyes, and it feels like the first clue of daybreak, an uncompromising parting of shadows; but the man is smiling, like everyone else, and when Kaidan blinks, it has disappeared, as surely as if it never existed to begin with, and maybe that's it, a trick of the light, a bad memory. Later in the evening, it will creep on him again, that _look_ as he watched John, when he spies the two of them together on their little balcony, the window closed behind them.

He sits with the others as they drink and talk and exchange stories of mending and repairs, but out of the corner of his eye, he searches the dark where they stand, to no avail until Vega turns to his lover, tells him something he can't decipher (how could he?), and there's a harshness in his expression when he does, something savage, fierce, ferocious. _Ferocity._ He almost gets up and join them then, but the appeasing hand John puts on Vega's shoulder snuffs the desire out of him, and the breath out of his lungs. He tells himself that it's nothing, or Shepard trying to solve everyone's issues, as usual. After that, they both turn to watch the horizon, or the forest, he doesn't know, and he resolves to simply ask John, when they'll be in bed later, tangled together, what it was all about, if anything was wrong.

" _We just talked about Earth,_ " John answers, already half-asleep, " _Old things,_ " like it doesn't matter.


	3. Circle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has been sitting on my hard drive for a long time; well, here it is, at last, all cleaned up and shiny (eh, probably not so much). Good reading!

\- “No.”

There was no answer possible to that tone; it wasn’t the Commander one, nor the cold soldier, even less the angry John. This one, Kaidan had never even heard before; it tugged at his heartstrings, was enough to empty his lungs and make him see black for a second. He wanted to think that this sound he’d heard was sadness and hurt and panic and fear, anything to settle his mind far from the taste of ash in his mouth.

\- “I’m sorry, Kaidan. I’m sorry. I can’t take this risk, love. I can’t.”

The voice is gentler, softer even, but there’s an unsettling firmness behind them. John is trying to console him, but he won’t change his mind, Kaidan’s mind supplies. Finality, he thinks while finding himself unable to even look at his lover, instead choosing to concentrate on his own hands. Behind him, the mattress sinks a bit, the sign of someone moving. Not towards him, though. There’s the sound of bare feet on the wooden floor, of fabric and a zipper. His hands haven’t changed much since the day they walked up the hill to their apartment for the first time; they’re still calloused, still hardened and he remembers John’s stare, the empty dark eyes when he saw the park in front of the building.

Leaves and trees burnt gray and black, a sick and hollow look to them, with a lone, long-abandoned stone bench underneath. He remembers talking about how it will be nicer in spring, how they will go sit in the shadows in summer, how autumn will be beautiful when it comes next year, and John finally smiling, just a little. Their living-room and bedroom windows both have a view on the park. He remembers talking about that, too. John liked the scenery, enough so that Kaidan would often find him gazing upon it, lost to the world and himself, even. He knows his lover’s looking over there now, too. Every time Kaidan sees him doing this, he imagines him thinking about that first day, about promises of a better tomorrow. They have it now.

\- “They were right. They were right, and it’s not worth it. You see, my parents, they… We never did talk about them, I think. They were…”

And it’s true. They never did. As Kaidan raises from the bed and turn to his companion, it’s like a thousand needles prickle him, even though it’s only September, hasn’t even been one year that they’re here. As he thought, John’s looking outside. His clenched jaw rings something in Kaidan’s mind, but he can’t pinpoint what, no matter how desperately he tries to grasp it. It’s a feeling not unlike being in a sniper’s line of sight; even a friendly one, even Garrus, and he almost snickers, because why think about him now? It’s alarm, confusion, frenzy, dread. It’s a rush and Kaidan is frozen, waiting on the edge of something.

Somewhere, something’s falling.

\- “… loving. They loved me, I think. They tried their best for us, to get us ready to live in their world. My family, they weren’t bad, it just had been hard for them. They told me, when I was very young, “You mustn’t trust people, John. People will stab you in the back as soon as they will be able. You can find value and others and have esteem and respect for them, John, but you can’t trust. Nor those you will call friends, nor anyone else. Even your family, even if family is above everything else.”

For a split second, he wants to laugh. Never before John had talked about all this. They had planned to go meet Kaidan’s parents after transcontinental transportation would have been fully reestablished, but never once did John say anything about his own family. He had seen the files, of course; they only ever talked of a sixteen years old orphan trying to pass eighteen and succeeding. Siblings, there were siblings. Had been. Did it count as a lie? His train of thought’s derailing, he knows. It doesn’t matter now. No, it does, but telling to a too little years old boy that everything he will ever have in the whole world is himself, how does that work? How does that even work? It’s cruel, and hard, and monstrous, and he’s not quite able the find the words, seemingly condemned to wait while holding his breath for an answer to his broken heart.

He remains, he expects, he watches John stare at the trees as if their leaves weren’t green, as if almost one year ago, his mouth set on a firm line. He stays and he can’t see anything in his lover’s face, can’t find the child, can’t reconcile the kid who had to hear with the man he knows, with the paragon of virtue, the savior, the strong one. With Shepard.

\- “I have friends. I have more than that, even. And I’ve proved that what they gave me, I’d gladly give in return. That as they’d lay their down their lives… I’d do the same. But in the end, in the end of things, it doesn’t change anything. They did right, taught us, taught me well, and I’d do the same. I’d burn it in them like they did to me, because as painful as it was, living like that… I still think they were right, even though I know that, it’s… it’s not what you want for your children, Kaidan. That’s not what I want for mine, either. Risking this… no. No. It’s not worth it.”

It’s like a flame. Like disappointment (not in Shepard, never in him), like wanting to stand up after being beaten black, like anger licking your insides and trying to burn its way out of you.

\- “You are stronger, you are — better than this!”

A mouth like a straight line; empty, dark eyes, gazing upon a forest scorched coal and a single, forsaken stone bench.

\- “No.”

It breaks.


End file.
